Doom Star: Book 02 - Bio-Weapon (10 page)

“Let us make super-soldiers,” they said to one another.

The Directorate thus gathered biologists and eugenicists and other needed technicians and began the secret program of bioengineered man. The results were cloned thousands of times over. And so the soldiers were born.

Well, not
born
exactly, not like regular humans. Test tube babies they would have said in past centuries.

Lab-grown, vat-clones, tankers, the fetuses grew by the hundreds in carefully controlled machines. “Birth” occurred six months after fertilization. The batch obtained its number and feeders and comforters took care of the crying little specimens. Den mother and fathers changed too often for growing pre-soldiers to get attached. In truth, the less said about the first seven years the better. After the seventh year, they entered barracks and school and began their soldiering trade.

Somewhere along the line—before an Invasion Fleet had been sent to the Jupiter Confederation, the closest target—the super-soldiers had decided that they should rule the Inner Planets. Most commentators believed that the decision to rebel had happened after they were given Doom Stars and after they had shown their mettle at the Second Battle of Deep Mars Orbit. Soon thereafter, they bit the hand that fed them. They tried to kill those who had given them birth.

Birth. It was a touchy word with the super-soldiers. And didn’t they need a better name than super-soldiers or space marines? They wanted to be called something that would distinguish them from, from… premen, normals,
Homo sapiens
(said with a lilting sneer).

What about Highborn?

Yes!

High-BORN
.

Perfect.

“Look at the boy over there,” said the Praetor, who stood with his shoulders arrogantly thrust back and his head as erect and predatory as an eagle.

Lycon nodded. He saw him: A long-armed lad with a bloody nose. He clutched an opponent in a full nelson. The boy’s hands were pressed against the back of his opponent’s head, while his arms were wrapped under his opponent’s armpits.

Whistles blew as instructors noticed the two.

“Will he kill him?” asked the Praetor.

Lycon was shocked to realize that he would.

The winning boy’s teeth were visible as his lips curled in a savage snarl. His forearm muscles were stark and trembling, his neck was seemingly made of cords and cables as he strained with all his might. The other boy’s head bent lower and lower, but he refused to cry out or ask for quarter.

Lycon resisted the urge to leap over the barrier and into the sandpit. He disproved of killing one so young. Revival at this age strangely tainted them. He recalled a Lot 6 specimen by the name of Sigmir. He shook his head. If he jumped down and stopped the lad from killing the weaker boy, he knew he would lose rank in the Praetor’s eyes. He couldn’t afford that, not today.

“Well?” asked the Praetor. “Will he kill him or not?”

The instructors shrilly blew their whistles as they rushed toward the two boys.

The crack of a breaking neck was loud and sinister. The killer didn’t gasp in disbelief at what he’d done. He simply let go and watched the corpse drop onto the sand.

The instructors knocked the killer aside as they knelt beside the dead boy, with his head titled at an impossible angle. Pneumospray hypos appeared in their hands and hissed as the instructors pumped Suspend into the corpse.

“Will they be in time?” asked the Praetor.

“It seems so,” said Lycon.

“Yes,” said the Praetor. “The boy should make a clean revival.”

In 2350, the dead didn’t always stay down. Resurrection techniques revived many if Suspend froze their brains and various organs in time.

“What will happen to the other boy?” asked Lycon.

“The killer?” said the Praetor.

Lycon waited. Over-talkativeness was a bad trait.

“He will be punished,” said the Praetor, “and marked as a ranker, a climber.”

Lycon had known it would be so. Teach them to obey, but use a natural killer where he belonged: leading combat troops. The Praetor ran the Gymnasium strictly according to regulations.

“Come with me,” said the Praetor.

They strolled along the walkway, passing other sandpits: knife-training areas, boxing matches and battle-stick duels. Lycon kept debating with himself when he should tell the Praetor about today’s little incident.

“You are an infantry specialist,” the Praetor said. “What is your analysis of our future?”

“They are well-trained.”

“And strong, yes?

“Big and strong,” said Lycon.

“True Highborn,” the Praetor said.

Lycon nodded, not trusting himself to speak, wondering if the Praetor meant more by the remark.

They came to the end of the walkway. To the left, stairs led down to a staging area. The Praetor ignored the stairs. He kept heading toward the wall.

“Praetor,” said Lycon.

The Praetor turned.

“Did you instruct your Chief Monitor to relay a message to me today?”

“You query me, Training Master?”

“Your Chief Monitor spoke to me. I’m simply curious if he was ordered by you to do so.”

“He had no orders from me,” the Praetor said.

“It was from him that I learned to come to the Gymnasium.”

The Praetor appeared surprised. “I left a note on my door. Perhaps he read it and took it upon himself to deliver the message.”

“Ah,” said Lycon.

“He spoke with you?”

“The Chief Monitor hailed me.”

“Without correct address?” the Praetor asked.

Lycon nodded.

“He will be punished.”

Lycon rubbed his jaw. “He touched me. He grabbed my arm to stop me.”

The Praetor blinked. “You can verify this?”

Lycon hid his anger at being asked such a question. “I struck him for this outrage. Unfortunately, my blow killed.”

“You killed my Chief Monitor?”

Lycon pulled out his recorder. “If you would care to replay this…”

The Praetor accepted the slender recorder and listened to the premen. “You acted correctly,” he said later, returning the recorder.

“It was not my wish to kill him,” said Lycon.

“Next time I won’t select a fool for a Chief Monitor. I hold no ill will, Training Master.”

Lycon dipped his head.

“Now, come with me.” The Praetor strode toward the wall.

Lycon was puzzled but said nothing. He was relieved the Praetor had taken the Chief Monitor’s death so well. Some Highborn became attached to their premen.

The Praetor strode to the wall, glanced about—no one seemed to be watching—and spoke sharply. A section of wall slid open. The Praetor hurried through and Lycon followed.

Behind them, the wall section slid shut. Lights snapped on. They stood in a small changing room, complete with lockers and benches. The Praetor marched to the farthest bench and opened a locker, taking out leather garments.

“Yours are in the next one,” said the Praetor.

Lycon hesitated.

The Praetor, perhaps alert for this, asked, “Is something wrong, Training Master?”

“I don’t understand the meaning of this.”

“Exercise.”

“I have plenty of it while training the shock troops.”

“I’m certain of that, Training Master. But I have so many chores and tasks that often I’m forced to skip physical activity. Also, you’re an infantry specialist. So I wanted your opinion, and how better than to actually engage in it.”

“It, Praetor?”

“Oh, do leave me my surprises, Training Master. It’s finally ready and you’re the first beside me to run through it.”

Highborn prided themselves on snap decisions. Lycon wasn’t any different. “Yes, of course,” he said.

He disrobed, folding his blue uniform. Beside him, the Praetor did likewise. Both were highly muscled and perfectly toned. Flab appeared nowhere on the Praetor, despite his protests of lack of exercise. Lycon was thinner and leaner, although compared to a preman he was massive and thick. Both donned skin-suits and went barefoot.

“You’ll have to leave your sidearm behind,” the Praetor said.

Lycon set his big gun on top of his uniform. Then he put them in a locker.

“Take this,” said the Praetor.

Lycon accepted gauntlets with small iron knobs on the knuckles. He watched the Praetor slip on his own pair.

“Are we to spar?” asked Lycon.

The Praetor’s weird pink eyes seemed to glitter. “Does such a prospect worry an infantry specialist?”

“Only a fool ignores the odds,” Lycon said. “I do not like to think of myself as a fool.”

“Well said, Training Master. No, it is not my wish to spar today. Rather, we hunt.”

“What?”

“That is an interesting question,” the Praetor said. “I haven’t yet thought of a formal name. Perhaps after today you can name them for me.”

Lycon liked this less and less. He followed the Praetor out the locker room and through another sliding wall.

They entered a huge room unlike any other in the Sun Works Factory, a former zoological area. It seemed endless. Sand, tall cacti and sagebrush was everywhere, together with rolling dunes and rust-colored boulders. Overhead, an undeterminable distance away, shined what seemed to be a sun. A breeze blew. Birds called.

“Observe,” said the Praetor, pointing.

Lycon frowned. A vulture wheeled overhead. “Is it real?”

“A holo-image, but very convincing. Yes?”

“Are there any real animals here?”

“Most certainly.”

“The ones we are to hunt?” asked Lycon.

The Praetor said, “Perhaps hunt isn’t the correct word. Perhaps it is we who are the prey.” He slapped the wall. “We can’t get out this way. We have to cross the dunes to the other side.”

Lycon dared put a hand on the Praetor’s forearm. “Am I to believe that you would allow yourself to be hunted, the Praetor of the Sun Works Factory, the Fourth Highest among us?”

The Praetor stared haughtily at the hand.

Lycon removed it.

The Praetor considered the dunes as he expanded his massive chest. He exuded power and rank and something the Highborn referred to as excellence. “Yes. I allow myself to be hunted.”

“Why?
“To prove a point.”

“Which is?”

“Walk with me,” the Praetor said, with a harder tone.

Lycon moved on the balls of his feet, listening, watching and ready for some insane beast, a wolf-tiger hybrid or some other monstrosity, to leap out and attack.

The Praetor also watched, his head swiveling like a lion, his pink eyes alert and alive.

“It would help if I knew what to look for,” Lycon said.

“I will pose a question. How can two million Highborn conquer the Solar System?”

Was this a complaint against the Grand Admiral’s strategy? Lycon didn’t think so, but…

“Earth alone holds forty billion premen,” the Praetor said.

“Our conquest of the Inner Planets moves strictly according to the Grand Admiral’s scheme,” said Lycon

“Ah,” the Praetor said. “Therein is your reluctance, eh? Rest assured that I am not asking in a seditious manner. No. Think of it as a… as a philosophical question.”

“I’m not sure I understand.”

The Praetor froze. His nostrils widened. Tension coiled with unbelievable urgency. Although motionless, a frenzy seemed to have gripped him.

Lycon also tested the air, but he could detect nothing unusual. A whispery wind stirred grit against a nearby boulder. Before them rose a dune dotted with sagebrush.

The Praetor minutely twisted his head. Then he set out in a half crouch. Lycon followed, wary, troubled and alert. They crested the dune. Before them, spread a tiny valley. Boulders rose here and there. Giant cacti held aloft their spiky branches. The breeze rattled grit in shifting patterns over the hardpan.

Tension oozed from the Praetor, although his pink eyes seemed to shine as he regarded Lycon. “Two million, Training Master. Just a mere two million Highborn to conquer billions of premen. Oh, we have replacements as you’ve just seen. But a handful, really, a hundred thousand each year. Say we do conquer the Solar System. How can we control them?”

Lycon grew even more wary. “You are Fourth, Praetor. I am certain such questions engage your energies. As for me, I train the shock troopers.”

“Which is exactly why I pose you the question. Come. This way.”

The Praetor started down the hill. His eyes roved everywhere. He paused once to test the wind. Lycon followed. At a boulder the Praetor stopped. He touched the towering rock. “Take a look around.”

Lycon scrambled up the boulder. He peered at every shadow. Then he jumped down and shook his head.

The Praetor appeared puzzled, and a twitch of annoyance crossed his features. He strode several steps before he froze. He turned back. A strange ecstasy now softened his features. When he spoke, it was with husky overtones.